Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 1.2.12

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: Pythagoras is said to have learned from Zaratas the Chaldean that all things come from two causes, light and darkness.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 12

Διόδωρος δὲ ὁ Ἐρετριεὺς καὶ Ἀριστόξενος ὁ μουσικός φασι πρὸς Ζαράταν τὸν Χαλδαῖον ἐληλυθέναι Πυθαγόραν· τὸν δὲ ἐκθέσθαι αὐτῷ δύο εἶναι ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς τοῖς οὖσιν αἴτια, πατέρα καὶ μητέρα· καὶ πατέρα μὲν φῶς, μητέρα δὲ σκότος, τοῦ δὲ φωτὸς μέρη θερμόν, ξηρόν, κοῦφον, ταχύ· τοῦ δὲ σκότους ψυχρόν, ὑγρόν, βαρύ, βραδύ· ἐκ δὲ τούτων πάντα τὸν κόσμον συνεστάναι, ἐκ θηλείας καὶ ἄρρενος.

English · Claude translation

Diodorus of Eretria and Aristoxenus the musician say that Pythagoras went to Zaratas the Chaldean; and that he explained to him that there are from the beginning two causes of the things that exist, father and mother; the father is light and the mother darkness; the parts of light are hot, dry, light, swift; of darkness, cold, moist, heavy, slow; and from these the whole world is composed, from female and male.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 12 · 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.

Notes

Translation notes

  • Zaratas is Zoroaster.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 1.2.12 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/2/12/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 1.2.12 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/2/12/).

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