Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 5.19.18

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 hissing wind is like a serpent, and from it all generation began.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 206

ὡς ἐπὶ πάντων τῶν ζῴων θεωρεῖται. Ὁ δὲ ἄνεμος λάβρος ὁμοῦ καὶ σφοδρὸς φερόμενός ἐστι τῷ συρίγματι ὄφει παραπλήσιος. Πρῶτον οὖν ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀνέμου, τουτέστιν ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄφεως, ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς γεννήσεως τὸν εἰρημένον τρόπον γέγονε, πάντων ὁμοῦ τὴν ἀρχὴν τῆς γεννήσεως εἰληφότων.

English · Claude translation

as is observed in all living creatures. And the wind, rushing violent and fierce, is like a serpent in its hissing. First, then, from the wind, that is, from the serpent, the beginning of generation came about in the way described, all things together having received the beginning of generation.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 206 · 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

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.19.18 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/19/18/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 5.19.18 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/19/18/).

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