Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 6.30.8

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: Without a male partner Sophia could only emit formless substance.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 274

Ἐν μὲν γὰρ τῷ ἀγεννήτῳ, φησίν, ἔστι πάντα ὁμοῦ, ἐν δὲ τοῖς γεννητοῖς τὸ μὲν θῆλυ ἔστιν οὐσίας προβλητικόν, τὸ δὲ ἄρρεν μορφωτικὸν τῆς ὑπὸ τοῦ θήλεως προβαλλομένης οὐσίας. Προέβαλεν οὖν ἡ σοφία τοῦτο μόνον ὅπερ ἠδύνατο, οὐσίαν ἄμορφον καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστον.

English · Claude translation

“For in the unbegotten,” he says, “all things are together; but among the begotten the female emits substance, and the male gives form to the substance emitted by the female. Sophia, then, emitted only what she could, a substance without form and unfurnished.”

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 274 · 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 (unread letters in the digital text; the reading is certain from context): οὐσ(??)ς → οὐσίας.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.30.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/30/8/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 6.30.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/30/8/).

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