Refutation of All Heresies 5.9.18

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.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 172

Ὁ δὲ ποταμὸς ὁ τέταρτος Εὐφράτης. Τοῦτον λέγουσι στόμα, διʼ οὗ ἡ τῆς προσευχῆς ἔξοδος καὶ ἡ τῆς τροφῆς εἴσοδος, ἣ εὐφραίνει καὶ τρέφει καὶ χαρακτηρίζει τὸν πνευματικὸν τέλειον ἄνθρωπον. Τοῦτο, φησίν, ἐστὶ τὸ ὕδωρ τὸ ὑπεράνω τοῦ στερεώματος, περὶ οὗ, φησίν, εἴρηκεν ὁ σωτήρ· Εἰ ᾔδεις τίς ἐστιν ὁ αἰτῶν, σὺ ἂν ᾔτησας παρʼ αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἔδωκεν ἂν σοι πιεῖν ζῶν ὕδωρ ἁλλόμενον.

English · Claude translation

"And the fourth river is Euphrates." This they say is the mouth, through which prayer goes out and food comes in, which gladdens (euphrainei), nourishes, and stamps the spiritual perfect man. This, he says, is the water above the firmament, about which, he says, the Savior said: "If you knew who it is who asks, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water, springing up, to drink."

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 172 · 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

Gen 2:14 · quotation, high confidence
Gen 1:7 · allusion, high confidence
John 4:10 · quotation, high confidence
John 4:14 · allusion, medium confidence

Topics

Heresy, Prayer

Notes

Translation notes

The allusions are Gen 2:14, Gen 1:7, and John 4:10, 14. The play is on Εὐφράτης and εὐφραίνει "gladdens".

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (wrong accent in the digital text): σὺ ἄν ᾔτησας → σὺ ἂν ᾔτησας; ἔδωκεν ἄν σοι → ἔδωκεν ἂν σοι.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.9.18 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/9/18/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.9.18 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/9/18/).