Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 8.9.7

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 Archon is the fiery God who spoke from the bush, which they interpret as the dark air through which the forms passed.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 418

ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν. Τοῦτον λέγει Μωϋσῆς πύρινον θεὸν ἀπὸ τοῦ βάτου λαλήσαντα, τουτέστιν ἀπὸ τοῦ σκοτεινοῦ ἀέρος· (βάτος γάρ ἐστι πᾶς ὁ σκότει ὑποκείμενος ἀήρ) βάτον δέ, φησίν, εἴρηκε Μωϋσῆς, ὅτι ἄνωθεν κάτω πᾶσαι διέβησαν τοῦ φωτὸς αἱ ἰδέαι βατὸν ἔχουσαι τὸν ἀέρα.

English · Claude translation

God made the heaven and the earth.” This is the one Moses calls the fiery God who spoke from the bush, that is, from the dark air (for all the air that lies under darkness is a bush); and Moses, he says, said “bush” (batos) because all the forms of light passed from above downward, having the air as passable (batos).

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 418 · 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 quotation is Gen 1:1; the allusions are Exod 3:2 and Deut 4:24. The Greek plays on βάτος, “bush,” and βατός, “passable.”

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 8.9.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/8/9/7/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 8.9.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/8/9/7/).

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