Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 4.14.17

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: When the numbers give the wrong winner, the diviners claim the name was only an epithet.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 78

Πάλιν Ἄμυκος καὶ Πολυδεύκης. Ἄμυκος μὲν ποιεῖ μονάδας δύο κατὰ τὸν ἐννεαδικόν, καὶ Πολυδεύκης δὲ ἑπτά· νικᾷ Πολυδεύκης. Αἴας καὶ Ὀδυσσεὺς ἐπάλαισαν ἐν τῷ ἐπιταφίῳ. Αἴας ποιεῖ κατὰ τὸν ἐννεαδικὸν μονάδας (??), Ὀδυσσεὺς ὀκτὼ κατὰ τὸν ἐννεαδικόν· ἆρα οὖν μήτι τὸ Ὀδυσσέως ἐπίθετον καὶ οὐ κύριόν ἐστιν; ἐνίκησε γάρ. Κατὰ μὲν τοὺς ἀριθμοὺς νικᾷ Αἴας, ἡ δʼ ἱστορία Ὀδυσσέα παραδίδωσιν.

English · Claude translation

Again, Amycus and Polydeuces. Amycus makes two units by the rule of nine, and Polydeuces seven: Polydeuces wins. Ajax and Odysseus wrestled at the funeral games. Ajax makes … units by the rule of nine, Odysseus eight by the rule of nine. Is Odysseus's name, then, perhaps an epithet and not a proper name? For he won. By the numbers Ajax wins, but the story hands the victory to Odysseus.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 78 · 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.

Notes

Translation notes

  • A number could not be read by the digitizers (marked (??) in the digital text).

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.14.17 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/14/17/).

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

Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 4.14.17 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/14/17/).

Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)

Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text

Report an error in this passage