Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 5.9.19

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: Each nature draws its own from this water, as a magnet draws iron.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 172

Ἐπὶ τοῦτο, φησί, τὸ ὕδωρ πᾶσα φύσις ἔρχεται τὰς ἑαυτῆς οὐσίας ἐκλέγουσα, καὶ προσέρχεται ἑκάστῃ φύσει ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕδατος τούτου τὸ οἰκεῖον, φησί, μᾶλλον ἢ σίδηρος τῇ Ἡρακλείᾳ λίθῳ, καὶ ὁ χρυσὸς τῇ τοῦ θαλασσίου ἱέρακος κερκίδι, καὶ τὸ ἄχυρον τῷ ἠλέκτρῳ.

English · Claude translation

To this water, he says, every nature comes, choosing out its own substances, and what is its own comes to each nature from this water, he says, more than iron to the Heraclean stone, and gold to the spine of the sea-hawk, and chaff to amber.

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.
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • The Heraclean stone is the magnet.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.9.19 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/9/19/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 5.9.19 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/9/19/).

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