Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 6.53.1

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: The four elements and their four qualities are said to image the upper tetrad and ogdoad.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 338

Κατεσκευάσθαι δὲ διὰ τῆς μητρὸς λέγουσι πρῶτον μὲν τὰ τέσσαρα στοιχεῖα, ἅ φησιν, πῦρ, ὕδωρ, γῆν, ἀέρα, εἰκόνα προβεβλῆσθαι τῆς ἄνω τετράδος· τάς τε ἐνεργείας αὐτῶν συναριθμοῦντες, οἷον θερμόν, ψυχρόν, ὑγρόν, ξηρόν, λέγουσιν ἀκριβῶς ἐξεικονίζειν τὴν ὀγδοάδα.

English · Claude translation

They say that through the Mother there were first constructed the four elements, which, he says, are fire, water, earth, and air, emitted as an image of the tetrad above; and counting their activities too, such as hot, cold, wet, and dry, they say that they exactly image the ogdoad.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 338 · 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

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.53.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/53/1/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 6.53.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/53/1/).

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