Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 5.7.25

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 seed, cause of all things, is unmoved and becomes none of them.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 142

Λέγουσιν οὖν περὶ τῆς τοῦ σπέρματος οὐσίας, ἥτις ἐστὶ πάντων τῶν γινομένων αἰτία, ὅτι τούτων ἐστὶν οὐδέν, γεννᾷ δὲ καὶ ποιεῖ πάντα τὰ γινόμενα, λέγοντες οὕτως· γίνομαι ὃ θέλω καὶ εἰμὶ ὃ εἰμί, διὰ τοῦτο φημὶ ἀκίνητον εἶναι τὸ πάντα κινοῦν. Μένει γὰρ ὅ ἐστι ποιοῦν τὰ πάντα καὶ οὐδὲν τῶν γινομένων γίνεται.

English · Claude translation

They say, then, about the substance of the seed, which is the cause of all things that come to be, that it is none of them, yet begets and makes all things that come to be, saying thus: "I become what I will and I am what I am; therefore I say that what moves all things is unmoved. For it remains what it is, making all things, and becomes none of the things that come to be."

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 142 · 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

Translation notes

  • "I am what I am" echoes Exod 3:14.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.7.25 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/7/25/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 5.7.25 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/7/25/).

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