Refutation of All Heresies 5.21.9

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: Through teaching, the captured ray hastens to the Word who came in a slave's form and becomes one with him.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 212

Οὕτως ἡ τοῦ καταμεμιγμένου τῷ ὕδατι φωτὸς ἀκτίς, οἰκείου χωρίου ἐκ διδασκαλίας καὶ μαθήσεως μεταλαβοῦσα, σπεύδει πρὸς τὸν λόγον τὸν ἄνωθεν ἐλθόντα ἐν εἰκόνι δουλικῇ, καὶ γίνεται μετὰ τοῦ λόγου λόγος ἐκεῖ, ὅπου λόγος ἐστί, μᾶλλον ἢ ὁ σίδηρος πρὸς τὴν ἡρακλείαν λίθον. Καὶ ὅτι ταῦθʼ οὕτως ἔχει, φησί, καὶ πάντα διακρίνεται ἐπὶ τῶν οἰκείων τόπων τὰ συγκεκραμένα, μάνθανε.

English · Claude translation

“So the ray of the light that has been mixed with the water, having received its proper place through teaching and learning, hastens to the Word who came from above in the likeness of a slave, and becomes, with the Word, word there where the Word is, more swiftly than iron to the Heraclean stone. And that these things are so,” he says, “and that all blended things are separated into their proper places, learn this:

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 212 · 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

Phil 2:7 · allusion, high confidence

Topics

Heresy, Christology

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.21.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/21/9/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.21.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/21/9/).