Refutation of All Heresies 7.29.9

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, 384–386

Ἔστι μὲν οὖν τὸ μὲν νεῖκος αἴτιον τῆς κτίσεως πάσης, ὅ φησιν οὐλόμενον εἶναι, τουτέστιν ὀλέθριον· μέλει γὰρ αὐτῷ, ὅπως διὰ παντὸς αἰῶνος ἡ κτίσις αὑτὴ συνεστήκῃ· καὶ ἔστι πάντων τῶν γεγονότων τῆς γενέσεως δημιουργὸς καὶ ποιητὴς τὸ νεῖκος τὸ ὀλέθριον, τῆς δὲ ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τῶν γεγονότων ἐξαγωγῆς καὶ μεταβολῆς καὶ εἰς τὸν ἕνα ἀποκαταστάσεως ἡ φιλία·

English · Claude translation

Strife, then, is the cause of the whole creation, which he calls “accursed,” that is, destructive; for it takes care that the creation itself may hold together through every age. And destructive Strife is the Demiurge and maker of the coming-to-be of all things that have come to be, while Love is the maker of the leading out of things from the world, of their change, and of their restoration into the One;

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 384–386 · 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. 17 (Empedocles (fragments)) · allusion, high confidence

Notes

Translation notes

οὐλόμενον, “accursed,” is Empedocles' epithet for Strife (fragment 17).

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (missing rough breathing: ἕνα; wrong accent: οὖν): Ἔστι μὲν οὗν → Ἔστι μὲν οὖν; εἰς τὸν ἔνα → εἰς τὸν ἕνα.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.29.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/29/9/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.29.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/29/9/).