Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 6.11.1

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: Simon calls the fire perfect and intelligent, so that everything in it thinks and acts, and cites Empedocles on like knowing like.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 238–240

Τοιούτου δὲ ὄντος, ὡς διʼ ὀλίγων εἰπεῖν, κατὰ τὸν Σίμωνα τοῦ πυρός, καὶ πάντων τῶν ὄντων ὁρατῶν καὶ ἀοράτων, ὡσαύτως ἐνήχων καὶ ἀνήχων, ἀριθμητῶν καὶ ἀριθμῶν, ἐν τῇ Ἀποφάσει τῇ μεγάλῃ καλεῖ τέλειον νοερόν, οὕτως ὡς ἕκαστον τῶν ἀπειράκις ἀπείρως ἐπινοηθῆναι δυναμένων καὶ λαλεῖν καὶ διανοεῖσθαι καὶ ἐνεργεῖν, οὕτως ὡς φησὶν Ἐμπεδοκλῆς· Γαίῃ μὲν γὰρ γαῖαν ὀπώπαμεν, ὕδατι δʼ ὕδωρ, αἰθέρι δʼ αἰθέρα [δῖον], ἀτὰρ πυρὶ πῦρ ἀΐδηλον, καὶ [στοργῇ] στοργήν, νεῖκος δέ τε νείκεϊ λυγρῷ.

English · Claude translation

Such being the fire according to Simon, to put it briefly, and such all things that are, visible and invisible, likewise sounding and soundless, numerable and numbers, he calls it in the Great Declaration a perfect intelligent being, so that each of the things that can be conceived infinitely many times infinitely speaks, thinks, and acts, as Empedocles says: “For by earth we see earth, by water water, by air [bright] air, and by fire destructive fire, and [by love] love, and strife by baleful strife.”

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 238–240 · 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.
Extrabiblical texts
  • Empedocles, fragment 109 (Empedocles (fragments)) · quotation, high confidence
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • The quotation is Empedocles, fragment 109 (Diels–Kranz); the bracketed words are the editor's supplements.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.11.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/11/1/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 6.11.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/11/1/).

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