Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 5.19.7

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 pupil of the eye pictures the struggle: darkness keeps the light, while light and spirit strive to recover it.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 200–202

Καὶ τούτων ἔστιν ἰδεῖν τῆς φύσεως εἰκόνα κατὰ πρόσωπον ἀνθρώπου, κόρην ὀφθαλμοῦ, σκοτεινὴν ἐκ τῶν ὑποκειμένων ὑδάτων, πεφωτισμένην πνεύματι. Ὡς οὖν ἀντιποιεῖται τὸ σκότος τῆς λαμπηδόνος, ἵνα ἔχῃ τὸν σπινθῆρα δουλεύοντα καὶ βλέπῃ, οὕτως ἀντιποιεῖται τὸ φῶς καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς δυνάμεως τῆς ἑαυτῶν· καὶ σπεύδουσιν ἆραι καὶ ἀνακομίσασθαι πρὸς ἑαυτὰ τὰς μεμιγμένας αὐτῶν δυνάμεις εἰς τὸ ὑποκείμενον ὕδωρ σκοτεινὸν καὶ φοβερόν.

English · Claude translation

And one can see an image of the nature of these things in the human face: the pupil of the eye, dark from the waters beneath, lit up by spirit. As, then, the darkness lays claim to the brightness, so that it may have the spark as its servant and may see, so the light and the spirit lay claim to their own power, and they hasten to lift up and bring back to themselves their powers that have been mingled into the dark and fearful water beneath.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 200–202 · 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

Notes

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (wrong accent in the digital text): Ὡς οὗν → Ὡς οὖν.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.19.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/19/7/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 5.19.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/19/7/).

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