Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 6.12.4

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: If left unrealized, the power perishes like an untrained talent that dies with its owner.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 240

δὲ μείνῃ τῇ δυνάμει μόνον ἐν ταῖς ἓξ δυνάμεσι καὶ μὴ ἐξεικονισθῇ, ἀφανίζεται, φησί, καὶ ἀπόλλυται οὕτως ὡς ἡ δύναμις ἡ γραμματικὴ ἢ γεωμετρικὴ ἐν ἀνθρώπου ψυχῇ. Προσλαβοῦσα γὰρ ἡ δύναμις τέχνην φῶς τῶν γινομένων γίνεται, μὴ προσλαβοῦσα δὲ ἀτεχνία καὶ σκότος, καὶ ὡς ὅτε οὐκ ἦν, ἀποθνήσκοντι τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ συνδιαφθείρεται.

English · Claude translation

it remains only in potentiality in the six powers and is not brought to its full image, it vanishes,” he says, “and perishes, just as the capacity for grammar or geometry in a human soul. For the capacity, when it acquires the art, becomes a light of the things that come to be; but when it does not acquire it, it is lack of art and darkness, and, as if it had never been, it perishes with the man when he dies.”

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 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.
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (wrong accent in the digital text): ὅτε οὐκ ᾖν → ὅτε οὐκ ἦν.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.12.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/12/4/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 6.12.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/12/4/).

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