Refutation of All Heresies 7.22.3

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, 360

Ἀλλὰ εἶπε, φησί, καὶ ἐγένετο, καὶ τοῦτό ἐστιν, ὡς λέγουσιν οἱ ἄνδρες οὗτοι, τὸ λεχθὲν ὑπὸ Μωσέως· Γενηθήτω φῶς, καὶ ἐγένετο φῶς. Πόθεν, φησί, γέγονε τὸ φῶς; ἐξ οὐδενός· οὐ γὰρ γέγραπται, φησί, πόθεν, ἀλλʼ αὐτὸ μόνον ἐκ τῆς φωνῆς τοῦ λέγοντος, ὁ δὲ λέγων, φησίν, οὐκ ἦν, οὐδὲ τὸ γενόμενον ἦν.

English · Claude translation

But he spoke, he says, and it came to be; and this, as these men say, is what was said by Moses: “Let there be light, and there was light.” From where, he says, did the light come? From nothing. For it is not written, he says, from where, but only that it came from the voice of the one speaking; and the one speaking, he says, was not, nor was what came to be.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 360 · 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

Gen 1:3 · quotation, high confidence
Ps 33:9 (32:9 LXX) · echo, medium confidence

Topics

Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

The quotation is Gen 1:3; “he spoke and it came to be” echoes Ps 33:9 (32:9 LXX).

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (wrong breathing/accent: ἦν): οὐκ ἧν → οὐκ ἦν.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.22.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/22/3/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.22.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/22/3/).