Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 7.22.13

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 realm of the non-existent God was as unnatural to the Spirit as dry air to fish.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 362–364

ἀλλὰ ὥσπερ ἔστι παρὰ φύσιν καὶ ὀλέθριος τοῖς ἰχθύσιν ἀὴρ καθαρὸς καὶ ξηρός, οὕτω τῷ πνεύματι τῷ ἁγίῳ ἦν παρὰ φύσιν ἐκεῖνο τὸ ἀρρήτων ἀρρητότερον καὶ πάντων ἀνώτερον ὀνομάτων τοῦ οὐκ ὄντος ὁμοῦ θεοῦ χωρίον καὶ τῆς υἱότητος.

English · Claude translation

but just as pure, dry air is contrary to nature and deadly for fish, so that place of the non-existent God and of the Sonship together, more unspeakable than things unspeakable and higher than all names, was contrary to nature for the Holy Spirit.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 362–364 · 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. 7.22.13 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/22/13/).

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

Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 7.22.13 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/22/13/).

Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)

Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text

Report an error in this passage