Refutation of All Heresies 4.50.1

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, 124

Τούτοις χρώμενοι τοῖς λόγοις ἀπατᾶν νομίζουσι πολλούς, ὅσοι περιεργότερον τοῖς ἀστρολόγοις προσέχουσιν, ἐντεῦθεν τὴν θεοσέβειαν συνιστᾶν πειρώμενοι μακρὰν ἀπεμφαίνουσαν τῆς τούτων ὑπολήψεως. Διὸ, ἀγαπητοί, φύγωμεν τὸ μικροθαύμαστον τοῦ ὄρνιθος τοῦ ὤτου· ταῦτα γὰρ καὶ τὰ τοιάδε ὄρχησις ἐστὶ καὶ οὐκ ἀλήθεια.

English · Claude translation

Using these words they think they deceive many, as many as pay too curious attention to the astrologers, trying from there to establish a worship of God that stands far removed from their notion. Therefore, beloved, let us flee the easy amazement of the horned owl; for these things and the like are dancing and not truth.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 124 · 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.

Topics

Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

A word partly unread by the digitizers (marked (??)) is restored as λόγοις from the context.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (unreadable letter in the digital text; the word is certain from the context): λο(??)οις → λόγοις.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.50.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/50/1/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.50.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/50/1/).