Refutation of All Heresies 4.48.12

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: As the Dog Star shows which plants live, the Word judges the living and the dead.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 120–122

ἐπειδὰν δʼ ἡ τοῦ Κυνὸς ἀνατολὴ γένηται, ὑπὸ τοῦ Κυνὸς τὰ ζῶντα ἀπὸ τῶν νεκρῶν διακρίνεται· μαραίνεται γὰρ ὄντως ὅσα οὐκ ἐρριζοβόλησεν. Οὗτος οὖν, φησίν, ὁ Κύων, λόγος τις ὢν θεῖος, ζώντων καὶ νεκρῶν κριτὴς καθέστηκε, [καὶ] καθάπερ τῶν φυτῶν ὁ Κύων τὸ ἄστρον ἐπὶ τῆς κτίσεως θεωρεῖται, οὕτως ἐπὶ τῶν οὐρανίων φυτῶν, φησί, τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ὁ λόγος.

English · Claude translation

but when the rising of the Dog Star comes, the living are distinguished from the dead by the Dog; for whatever did not take root truly withers. This Dog, then, he says, being a divine Word, has been appointed judge of the living and the dead; [and] as the Dog Star is seen over the plants in creation, so the Word, he says, is over the heavenly plants, that is, men.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 120–122 · 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.

Scripture

2 Tim 4:1 · echo, medium confidence
Acts 10:42 · echo, medium confidence

Topics

Heresy, Eschatology

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.48.12 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/48/12/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.48.12 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/48/12/).