Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 8.9.2

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: All the Aeons together begot from the virgin Mary a common offspring, the Savior, equal to the first seed except that he is begotten.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 416

Οὗτοι πάντες οἱ αἰῶνες οἵ τε τρεῖς καὶ οἱ ἀπʼ αὐτῶν ἀπειράκις ἄπειροι πάντες εἰσὶν αἰῶνες ἀρσενοθήλυες. Αὐξηθέντες οὖν καὶ μεγαλυνθέντες καὶ γενόμενοι οὗτοι πάντες ἐξ ἑνὸς ἐκείνου τοῦ πρώτου σπέρματος, τῆς συμφωνίας αὐτῶν καὶ τῆς ἑνότητος οἱ πάντες, εἰς ἕνα ὁμοῦ γενόμενοι αἰῶνα τὸν μέσον αὐτῶν, γέννημα κοινὸν οἱ πάντες ἐγέννησαν ἐκ παρθένου μιᾶς, τὸν ἐν μεσότητι Μαρίας σωτῆρα πάντων, ἰσοδύναμον κατὰ πάντα τῷ σπέρματι τῷ συκίνῳ, πλὴν ὅτι γεννητὸς οὗτος, τὸ δὲ πρῶτον σπέρμα ἐκεῖνο, ὅθεν γέγονεν ἡ συκῆ, ἐστὶν ἀγέννητον.

English · Claude translation

All these Aeons, both the three and those that are infinitely infinite from them, are male-female Aeons. So all these, having grown and been magnified and come into being from that one first seed, all of them, by their harmony and unity, coming together into one Aeon, the middle one among them, all begot a common offspring from one virgin, the Savior of all, in the middle of Mary, equal in power in every respect to the fig seed, except that he is begotten, while that first seed from which the fig tree came is unbegotten.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 416 · 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, Christology

Notes

Translation notes

  • The phrase “in the middle of Mary” (ἐν μεσότητι Μαρίας) is obscure; it may mean “in the midst of,” or play on the “middle” Aeon.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 8.9.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/8/9/2/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 8.9.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/8/9/2/).

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