Refutation of All Heresies 5.25.1

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: Herodotus tells how Heracles, asleep in Scythia, lost his horse.

Show

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 216

Ἡρόδοτος μὲν οὖν τὸν Ἡρακλέα φησὶν ἀπὸ τῆς Ἐρυθείας τοῦ Γηρυόνου τὰς βοῦς ἄγοντα εἰς τὴν Σκυθίαν ἐλθεῖν, κεκμηκότα δὲ ἀπὸ τῆς πορείας εἰς ἔρημόν τι χωρίον κατακλιθέντα κοιμηθῆναι ὀλίγον· ὑπνώσαντος δὲ αὐτοῦ ἀφανῆ γενέσθαι τὸν ἵππον, ἐφʼ οὗ καθεζόμενος διώδευσε τὴν μακρὰν ὁδόν· περιεγερθεὶς δὲ ζήτησιν ἐποιεῖτο ἐπὶ τῆς ἐρημίας πολλήν, εὑρεῖν πειρώμενος τὸν ἵππον.

English · Claude translation

Herodotus, then, says that Heracles, driving the cattle of Geryon from Erytheia, came into Scythia; and being wearied by the journey he lay down in a deserted place and slept a little. While he slept, the horse on which he had ridden the long road vanished; and on waking he made a long search through the wilderness, trying to find the horse.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 216 · 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.
Extrabiblical texts
  • Herodotus, Hist. 4.8–10 (Herodotus, Histories) · allusion, high confidence

Notes

Translation notes

  • The story is Herodotus 4.8–10.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.25.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/25/1/).

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

Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 5.25.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/25/1/).

Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)

Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text

Report an error in this passage