Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 5.9.1

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: They call the Father an "almond" that split open to beget the ineffable Son.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 166

Ἔτι δὲ οἱ Φρύγες λέγουσι τὸν πατέρα τῶν ὅλων εἶναι ἀμύγδαλον, οὐχὶ δένδρον, φησίν, ἀλλὰ εἶναι ἀμύγδαλον ἐκεῖνον τὸν προόντα, ὃς ἔχων ἐν ἑαυτῷ τὸν τέλειον καρπὸν οἱονεὶ διασφύζοντα καὶ κινούμενον ἐν βάθει, διήμυξε τοὺς κόλπους αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐγέννησε τὸν ἀόρατον καὶ ἀκατονόμαστον καὶ ἄρρητον παῖδα ἑαυτοῦ, περὶ οὗ λαλοῦμεν.

English · Claude translation

Further, the Phrygians say that the Father of all things is an almond (amygdalos), not a tree, he says, but that that preexistent one is an almond, who, having in himself the perfect fruit as it were throbbing and moving in the depth, tore open (diēmyxe) his bosom and begot his invisible, unnameable, and ineffable child, of whom we speak.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 166 · 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

Translation notes

  • The play is on ἀμύγδαλος "almond" and ἀμύσσειν "to tear".

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.9.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/9/1/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 5.9.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/9/1/).

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