Refutation of All Heresies 4.51.3

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, 124–126

Ῥυὲν γὰρ τὸ σημεῖον ἐπὶ μῆκος γίνεται γραμμὴ μετὰ τὴν ῥύσιν, πέρας ἔχουσα σημεῖον, γραμμὴ δὲ ἐπὶ πλάτος ῥυεῖσα ἐπίπεδον γεννᾷ, πέρατα δὲ τοῦ ἐπιπέδου γραμμαί, ἐπίπεδον δὲ ῥυὲν εἰς βάθος γίνεται σῶμα· στερεοῦ δὲ ὑπάρξαντος, οὕτως ἐξ ἐλαχίστου σημείου παντελῶς ἡ τοῦ μεγάλου σώματος ὑπέστη φύσις, καὶ τοῦτο ἐστὶν ὃ λέγει Σίμων οὕτως· Τὸ μικρὸν μέγα ἔσται, οἱονεὶ σημεῖον ὄν, τὸ δὲ μέγα ἀπέραντον, κατακολουθῶν τῷ γεωμετρουμένῳ σημείῳ.

English · Claude translation

For the point, flowing in length, becomes after its flowing a line, having a point as its limit; a line, flowing in breadth, begets a plane, and the limits of the plane are lines; and a plane, flowing into depth, becomes a body. And when the solid exists, thus from the least point the nature of the great body has entirely come into being; and this is what Simon says thus: "The small will be great," being as it were a point, "and the great boundless," following the geometric point.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 124–126 · 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

Translation notes

Simon's saying is from the Great Declaration (Apophasis Megale), which Hippolytus quotes in Book 6.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (wrong accent in the digital text): ὅ λέγει Σίμων → ὃ λέγει Σίμων.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.51.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/51/3/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.51.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/51/3/).