Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 8.12.4

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: Monoimus reads “he was and came to be” as the Man and his Son, like fire and its light.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 424

Καὶ τοῦτό ἐστι, φησί, τὸ εἰρημένον ἐν ταῖς γραφαῖς· Ἦν καὶ ἐγένετο, ὅπερ ἐστίν· ἦν ἄνθρωπος, καὶ ἐγένετο υἱὸς αὐτοῦ, ὥς τις εἴποι· ἦν πῦρ καὶ ἐγένετο φῶς, ἀχρόνως καὶ ἀβουλήτως καὶ ἀπροορίστως ἅμα τῷ εἶναι τὸ πῦρ.

English · Claude translation

And this, he says, is what is said in the Scriptures: “He was and he came to be,” that is: there was the Man, and his Son came to be; as one might say, there was fire and light came to be, timelessly, without will, and without predetermination, at the same moment as the fire exists.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 424 · 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.
Scripture
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • The source of “He was and he came to be” is uncertain; perhaps a combination of John 1:1 and 1:14.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 8.12.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/8/12/4/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 8.12.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/8/12/4/).

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