Refutation of All Heresies 4.6.1

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.

Summary: Astrologers claim that people resemble the sign under which they are born.

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Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 62

Ἀλλʼ ἐπεὶ καὶ περὶ τῆς τῶν ζωδίων ἐνεργείας λόγον ποιοῦνται, οἷς φασὶ προσομοιοῦσθαι τὰ ἀποτικτόμενα, οὐδὲ τοῦτον παραλείψομεν, οἷον τὸν ἐν Λέοντι γεννηθέντα ἀνδρεῖον ἔσεσθαι· ὁ δὲ ἐν Παρθένῳ τετανόθριξ, λευκόχρως, ἄπαις, αἰδήμων.

English · Claude translation

But since they also give an account of the influence of the signs, to which they say those born are made like, we shall not leave this out either: for example, that one born in the Lion will be brave, and one in the Virgin straight-haired, fair-skinned, childless, modest.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 62 · 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.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.6.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/6/1/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 4.6.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/6/1/).

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