Refutation of All Heresies 6.29.5

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, 270–272

Ἦν ὅλως, φησί, γεννητὸν οὐδέν, πατὴρ δὲ ἦν μόνος ἀγέννητος, οὐ τόπον ἔχων, οὐ χρόνον, οὐ σύμβουλον, οὐκ ἄλλην τινὰ κατʼ οὐδένα τῶν τρόπων νοηθῆναι δυναμένην οὐσίαν· ἀλλὰ ἦν μόνος, ἠρεμῶν, ὡς λέγουσι, καὶ ἀναπαυόμενος αὐτὸς ἐν ἑαυτῷ μόνος. Ἐπεὶ δὲ ἦν γόνιμος, ἔδοξεν αὐτῷ ποτὲ τὸ κάλλιστον καὶ τελεώτατον, ὃ εἶχεν ἐν αὐτῷ, γεννῆσαι καὶ προαγαγεῖν· φιλέρημος γὰρ οὐκ ἦν. Ἀγάπη γὰρ, φησίν, ἦν ὅλος, ἡ δὲ ἀγάπη οὐκ ἔστιν ἀγάπη, ἐὰν μὴ ᾖ τὸ ἀγαπώμενον.

English · Claude translation

“There was nothing at all begotten,” he says, “but the Father alone was unbegotten, having no place, no time, no counsellor, no other being that could be conceived in any way; but he was alone, at rest, as they say, and reposing, himself in himself alone. But since he was generative, it seemed good to him at some point to beget and bring forth what was most beautiful and most perfect, which he had in himself; for he was not a lover of solitude. For he was all love,” he says, “and love is not love if there is not a beloved.”

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 270–272 · 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

1 John 4:8 · echo, low confidence

Topics

Heresy

Notes

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (wrong accent in the digital text; wrong breathing in the digital text): ἧν μόνος → ἦν μόνος; ᾐ τὸ ἀγαπώμενον → ᾖ τὸ ἀγαπώμενον.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.29.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/29/5/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.29.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/29/5/).