Refutation of All Heresies 1.24.7

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 Brahmins honor Dandamis, condemn Calanus, and hope to see the sun after death.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 44–46

Διὸ Δάνδαμιν μέν, πρὸς ὃν Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μακεδὼν εἰσῆλθεν, ὡς νενικηκότα τὸν πόλεμον τὸν ἐν τῷ σώματι, Βραχμᾶνες θεολογοῦσι· Καλάνου δὲ καταφέρονται ὡς ἀσεβῶς ἀποστατήσαντος τῆς κατʼ αὐτοὺς φιλοσοφίας. Ἀποθέμενοι δὲ Βραχμᾶνες τὸ σῶμα ὥσπερ ἐξ ὕδατος ἰχθύες ἀνακύψαντες εἰς ἀέρα καθαρὸν ὁρῶσι τὸν ἥλιον.

English · Claude translation

Therefore the Brahmins deify Dandamis, whom Alexander of Macedon visited, as one who conquered the war in the body; but they denounce Calanus as having impiously apostatized from their philosophy. When they lay aside the body, the Brahmins, like fish leaping out of the water into pure air, see the sun.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 44–46 · 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. 1.24.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/24/7/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 1.24.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/24/7/).