Refutation of All Heresies 4.27.1

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: Hippolytus begins to refute astrological physiognomy.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 88

Ἐπεὶ καὶ τούτων τὴν θαυμαστὴν σοφίαν ἐξεθέμεθα τήν τε πολυμέριμνον αὐτῶν διʼ ἐπινοίας μαντικὴν οὐκ ἀπεκρύψαμεν, οὐδὲ ἐν οἷς σφαλλόμενοι ματαιάζουσι σιωπήσομεν. Ἄστρων γὰρ ὀνόμασιν εἴδη καὶ φύσεις ἀνθρώπων παραβάλλοντες πῶς ἠσθένησαν!

English · Claude translation

Since we have set out the marvelous wisdom of these men too, and have not concealed their divination, so full of care, by conjecture, we shall not keep silent either about where they go astray and talk vanity. For how weak they have shown themselves in comparing the forms and natures of men to the names of stars!

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 88 · 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. 4.27.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/27/1/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.27.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/27/1/).