Refutation of All Heresies 1.8.10

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: Anaxagoras first explained eclipses and said the moon has plains and ravines.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 22

Οὗτος ἀφώρισε πρῶτος τὰ περὶ τὰς ἐκλείψεις καὶ φωτισμούς. Ἔφη δὲ γηΐνην εἶναι τὴν σελήνην ἔχειν τε ἐν αὐτῇ πεδία καὶ φάραγγας. Τὸν δὲ γαλαξίαν ἀνάκλασιν εἶναι τοῦ φωτὸς τῶν ἄστρων τῶν μὴ καταλαμβανομένων ὑπὸ τοῦ ἡλίου. τοὺς δὲ μεταβαίνοντας ἀστέρας ὡσεὶ σπινθῆρας ἀφαλλομένους γίνεσθαι ἐκ τῆς κινήσεως τοῦ πόλου.

English · Claude translation

He was the first to define the facts about eclipses and illuminations. He said the moon is earthy and has plains and ravines in it. The Milky Way is a reflection of the light of the stars that are not lit up by the sun. Shooting stars are like sparks leaping off, produced by the motion of the celestial pole.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 22 · 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. 1.8.10 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/8/10/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 1.8.10 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/8/10/).