Refutation of All Heresies 5.14.7

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 book lists further powers, identified by ignorance with Rhea and Demeter, and their human copies.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 186

Τούτου σημεῖον τὸ κυνὸς ἄστρον, οὗ κατʼ εἰκόνα ἐγένοντο Πτολεμαῖος ὁ Ἀρσινόης, Διδύμη, Κλεοπάτρα, Ὀλυμπιάς. Δύναμις θεοῦ δεξιά, ἣν ἐκάλεσεν ἡ ἀγνωσία Ῥέαν, οὗ κατʼ εἰκόνα ἐγένοντο Ἄττις, Μύγδων, Οἰνώνη. Δύναμις ἀριστερὰ τροφῆς ἐξουσιάζει, ἣν ἐκάλεσεν ἡ ἀγνωσία Δήμητραν, ὄνομα αὐτῇ Βένα· τούτου κατʼ εἰκόνα ἐγένοντο Κελεός, Τριπτόλεμος, Μίσυρ, Ἀπραξία.

English · Claude translation

His sign is the Dog Star, after whose image came Ptolemy son of Arsinoe, Didyme, Cleopatra, Olympias. The right-hand power of God, whom ignorance called Rhea, after whose image came Attis, Mygdon, Oenone. The left-hand power has authority over food; ignorance called it Demeter; its name is Bena; after its image came Celeus, Triptolemus, Misyr, Apraxia.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 186 · 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

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.14.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/14/7/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.14.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/14/7/).