Refutation of All Heresies 7.27.9

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, 378

Ἐπεὶ γάρ ἐστιν ὁ κόσμος διῃρημένος εἰς ὀγδοάδα, ἥτις ἐστὶν ἡ κεφαλὴ τοῦ παντὸς κόσμου, (κεφαλὴ δὲ τοῦ παντὸς κόσμου ὁ μέγας ἄρχων, ) καὶ εἰς ἑβδομάδα, ἥτις ἐστὶν ἡ κεφαλὴ τῆς ἑβδομάδος, ὁ δημιουργὸς τῶν ὑποκειμένων, καὶ εἰς τοῦτο τὸ διάστημα τὸ καθʼ ἡμᾶς, ὅπου ἐστὶν ἡ ἀμορφία, ἀναγκαῖον ἦν τὰ συγκεχυμένα φυλοκρινηθῆναι διὰ τῆς τοῦ Ἰησοῦ διαιρέσεως.

English · Claude translation

For since the world is divided into the Ogdoad, which is the head of the whole world (and the head of the whole world is the great Archon), and into the Hebdomad, which is the head of the Hebdomad, the Demiurge of the things beneath, and into this interval where we are, where the formlessness is, it was necessary that the things that had been confused should be sorted out through the division of Jesus.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 378 · 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, Christology

Notes

Translation notes

The phrase “which is the head of the Hebdomad” is awkward in the Greek; the sense is that the Hebdomad's head is the lower Demiurge.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.27.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/27/9/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.27.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/27/9/).