Refutation of All Heresies 6.25.1

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, 264

οὕτω φησὶ καὶ τὸν κόσμον ἀριθμητικῷ τινὶ καὶ μουσικῷ δεσμῷ δεδεμένον ἐπιτάσει καὶ ἀνέσει καὶ προσθήκῃ καὶ ἀφαιρέσει ἀεὶ καὶ διὰ παντὸς ἀδιάφθορον φυλαχθῆναι. Τοιγαροῦν καὶ περὶ τῆς διανομῆς τοῦ κόσμου ἀποφαίνονται τοιοῦτόν τινα τρόπον οἱ Πυθαγορικοί· ἦ γὰρ καὶ πάρος ἦν τε καὶ ἔσσεται, οὐδέ ποτʼ, οἴω, τούτων ἀμφοτέρων κενεώσεται ἄσπετος αἰών. Τίνων δὲ τούτων; τοῦ νείκους καὶ τῆς φιλίας.

English · Claude translation

so, he says, the world too, bound by a kind of arithmetical and musical bond, by tension and relaxation, addition and subtraction, is always and throughout kept incorruptible. Accordingly, the Pythagoreans also declare concerning the distribution of the world in some such way: “For it was before and will be, nor ever, I think, will boundless time be emptied of these two.” Of which two? Of Strife and Love.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 264 · 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.

Extrabiblical texts

Empedocles, fragment 16 (Empedocles (fragments)) · quotation, high confidence

Notes

Translation notes

The quotation is Empedocles, fragment 16 (Diels–Kranz), attributed here to the Pythagoreans.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (wrong accent and breathing in the digital text): ἠ γὰρ καὶ πάρος → ἦ γὰρ καὶ πάρος.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.25.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/25/1/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.25.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/25/1/).