Refutation of All Heresies 7.29.23

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, 390

Τοῦτον εἶναί φησιν ὁ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς νόμον μέγιστον τῆς τοῦ παντὸς διοικήσεως, λέγων ὧδέ πως· Ἔστιν ἀνάγκης χρῆμα, θεῶν ψήφισμα παλαιόν, ἀΐδιον, πλατέεσσι κατεσφρηγισμένον ὅρκοις, ἀνάγκην καλῶν τὴν ἐξ ἑνὸς εἰς πολλὰ κατὰ τὸ νεῖκος καὶ ἐκ πολλῶν εἰς ἓν κατὰ τὴν φιλίαν μεταβολήν· θεοὺς δέ, ὡς ἔφην, τέσσαρας μὲν θνητούς, πῦρ, ὕδωρ, γῆν, ἀέρα, δύο δὲ ἀθανάτους, ἀγεννήτους, πολεμίους ἑαυτοῖς διὰ παντός, τὸ νεῖκος καὶ τὴν φιλίαν·

English · Claude translation

Empedocles says that this is the greatest law of the government of the universe, speaking somewhat as follows: “There is an oracle of Necessity, an ancient decree of the gods, eternal, sealed with broad oaths,” calling Necessity the change from one into many according to Strife and from many into one according to Love; and gods, as I said, four mortal ones, fire, water, earth, air, and two immortal, unbegotten, forever at war with each other, Strife and Love;

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 390 · 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, frag. 115.1–2 (Empedocles (fragments)) · quotation, high confidence

Notes

Translation notes

Empedocles, fragment 115.1–2.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (misread letter: ἀνάγκην): ἀνάγχην → ἀνάγκην.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.29.23 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/29/23/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.29.23 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/29/23/).