Refutation of All Heresies 8.13.3
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.
Summary: The Son of Man, unknown to all, is wrongly imagined by creation as born of a woman; his faint rays sustain the world.
Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 426
Γέγονεν οὖν, φησίν, ἀπὸ τοῦ τελείου ἀνθρώπου ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, ὃν ἔγνωκεν οὐδείς, φαντάζεται δέ, φησίν, ὡς γέννημα θηλείας ἡ κτίσις πᾶσα τὸν υἱὸν ἀγνοοῦσα, οὗ υἱοῦ ἀκτῖνες ἀμυδραὶ πάνυ ἐμπελάζουσαι τῷδε τῷ κόσμῳ συνέχουσι καὶ συγκρατοῦσι τὴν μεταβολήν, τὴν γένεσιν.
English · Claude translation
So from the perfect Man, he says, came the Son of Man, whom no one has known; but the whole creation, not knowing the Son, imagines him, he says, as the offspring of a woman. Very faint rays of this Son, coming near to this world, hold together and control change, that is, generation.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The allusions are Matt 11:27 and Matt 11:11 (“born of women”).
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (wrong accent: οὖν): Γέγονεν οὗν → Γέγονεν οὖν.
Cite this passage
Hippolytus, Haer. 8.13.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/8/13/3/).
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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 8.13.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/8/13/3/).
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