Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 7.22.1

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: Everything the world would ever contain was stored in the seed, to unfold in time as teeth and reason appear later in a child.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 358–360

Πάντα οὖν, ὅσα ἐστὶν εἰπεῖν καὶ ἔτι μὴ εὑρόντα παραλιπεῖν, ὅσα τῷ μέλλοντι κόσμῳ γενέσθαι ἀπὸ τοῦ σπέρματος ἔμελλεν ἁρμόζειν, ἀναγκαίοις καιροῖς ἰδίως κατὰ προσθήκην αὐξανόμενα, ὡς ὑπὸ τηλικούτου καὶ τοιούτου θεοῦ, ὁποῖον οὐκ εἰπεῖν οὐδὲ νοήσει δυνατὴ γέγονε χωρῆσαι ἡ κτίσις, [καὶ] ἐνυπῆρχε τεθησαυρισμένα τῷ σπέρματι, καθάπερ νεογενεῖ παιδίῳ ὀδόντας ὕστερον ὁρῶμεν καὶ πατρικὴν προσγενέσθαι οὐσίαν καὶ φρένας καὶ ὅσα παραυξανομένῳ ἐκ νέου κατὰ μικρὸν ἀνθρώπῳ ἃ μὴ πρότερον ἦν γίνεται.

English · Claude translation

All things, then, that can be spoken of, and those still left aside because not yet discovered, all that were to fit the future world that was to come from the seed, growing by addition in their own necessary seasons, as by so great and such a God, of whom creation could neither speak nor even contain in thought, were present, stored up in the seed; just as in a newborn child we see teeth come later, and a father's substance, and understanding, and whatever else comes to a man growing up little by little from youth that was not there before.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 358–360 · 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

  • “A father's substance” may mean the father's inheritance or the power of begetting; the phrase is uncertain.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.22.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/22/1/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 7.22.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/22/1/).

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