Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 4.27.2

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 names of the constellations were chosen for convenience and say nothing about human character.

Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 88

τὰ μὲν γὰρ ἄστρα ἴσμεν τοὺς ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς ὀνομάσαντας ἰδίαν κατʼ ἔννοιαν ὀνόμασι κεκληκέναι πρὸς τὸ εὔσημα καὶ εὐεπίγνωστα τυγχάνειν. Τίς γὰρ τούτων ὁμοιότης πρὸς τὴν τῶν ζῳδίων εἰκόνα, ἢ τίς ὁμοία φύσις πράξεώς τε καὶ ἐνεργείας, ἵνα τις τὸν ἐν Λέοντι φάσκῃ θυμικόν, τὸν δὲ ἐν Παρθένῳ μέτριον ἢ ἐν Καρκίνῳ κακόν, τοὺς δὲ ἐν.

English · Claude translation

For we know that those who named the stars from the beginning called them by names according to their own notion, so that they might be easy to mark and recognize. For what likeness have these to the image of the signs, or what like nature of action and activity, that one should say the man in the Lion is passionate, the one in the Virgin moderate, or the one in the Crab bad, and those in …

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 88 · 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; the problem in this passage is discussed in the notes.
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

  • The text breaks off here; a gap follows in the manuscript before 4.28.1.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.27.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/27/2/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 4.27.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/27/2/).

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