Refutation of All Heresies 5.26.13

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: Wherever each group of Eden's angels rules, famine and disease follow in turn.

Show

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 222

Ὅταν δὲ ἐπικρατῇ τῶν τόπων ὁ Φεισών, λιμός, στενοχωρία, θλῖψις ἐν ἐκείνῳ τῷ μέρει τῆς γῆς γίνεται· φειδωλὸν γὰρ τὸ παράταγμα τῶν ἀγγέλων τούτων· ὁμοίως καὶ ἑκάστου μέρους τῶν τεσσάρων, κατὰ τὴν ἑκάστου δύναμιν καὶ φύσιν, κακοὶ καιροὶ καὶ νόσων στάσεις. Καὶ τοῦτο εἰσαεὶ κατὰ τὴν ἐπικράτησιν τῶν τεταρτημορίων ὡσπερεὶ ποταμῶν ῥεῦμα κακίας κατὰ θέλησιν τῆς Ἐδὲμ ἀδιαλείπτως τὸν κόσμον περιέρχεται.

English · Claude translation

When Pishon prevails over the places, famine, distress, and affliction occur in that part of the earth, for the array of these angels is stingy; and likewise with each of the four parts, according to the power and nature of each, come evil times and outbreaks of disease. And this flood of evil, according to the dominance of the quarters, like the stream of rivers, continually goes around the world without ceasing, according to the will of Eden.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 222 · 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

  • There is a play on Pishon (Φεισών) and “stingy” (φειδωλόν).

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.26.13 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/26/13/).

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

Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 5.26.13 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/26/13/).

Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)

Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text

Report an error in this passage