Refutation of All Heresies 6.24.1

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, 262

Δύο οὖν κατὰ τὸν Πυθαγόραν εἰσὶ κόσμοι, εἷς μὲν νοητός, ὃς ἔχει τὴν μονάδα ἀρχήν, εἷς δὲ αἰσθητός, τούτου δέ ἐστι τετρακτὺς ἔχουσα ἰῶτα, τὴν μίαν κεραίαν, ἀριθμὸν τέλειον· καὶ ἔστι κατὰ τοὺς Πυθαγορικοὺς τὸ ῑ, ἡ μία κεραία, πρώτη καὶ κυριωτάτη καὶ τῶν νοητῶν οὐσία νοητῶς καὶ αἰσθητῶς λαμβανομένη·

English · Claude translation

According to Pythagoras, then, there are two worlds: one intelligible, which has the monad as its principle, and one sensible, whose principle is the tetraktys, which has the iota, the one stroke, a perfect number; and according to the Pythagoreans the iota, the one stroke, is first and most sovereign, and the substance of the intelligibles, taken both intelligibly and sensibly;

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 262 · 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

Matt 5:18 · echo, medium confidence

Notes

Translation notes

The Greek letter iota is the numeral ten; “the iota, the one stroke” echoes Matt 5:18.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (unread letters in the digital text; the reading is certain from context; wrong accent in the digital text): Πυθαγορικ(??)ς → Πυθαγορικοὺς; εἰσί κόσμοι → εἰσὶ κόσμοι.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.24.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/24/1/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.24.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/24/1/).